The present invention relates to segmentation and visualization of blood vessels in image data. In particular it relates to modeling of cerebral aneurysms and incoming and outgoing vessels from 3D image data.
Cerebral aneurysms are the enlargements of arteries, which often tend to occur at or near bifurcations of arteries of the brain. In recent years, non-invasive treatment of cerebral aneurysms has become popular due to the advances in image acquisition devices. In clinical settings, threshold based segmentation algorithms or maximum intensity projection (MIP) visualizations combined with user interactions are heavily used for the treatment planning of cerebral aneurysms.
Unfortunately, these techniques are often sensitive to parameter settings, and may adversely affect the accuracy of the results to be used in treatment planning. Parameter setting is also not user friendly. Accordingly, novel and improved post-processing applications and methods for modeling aneurysms and their vessels are required for such treatment planning.